


KATH HOUNDS

by spicyshimmy



Series: Dragon Wars [1]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Gen, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-22
Updated: 2011-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/282126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicyshimmy/pseuds/spicyshimmy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Part of a series of vignettes for a Dragon Age/Star Wars AU, written for Kassafrassa on tumblr, with whom the concept was developed. Anders and Hawke are younglings. Hawke's kath hound steals Anders's gift from his master and mentor, and they meet for the first time. <i>Kath hounds drool.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	KATH HOUNDS

Kath hounds drool.

Anders learns this with his fingers knuckle-deep in the creature’s mouth, trying to pull something free— _it_ , the rock, the one possession he has beyond a braid and a few scattered ideals and a lightsaber, sun-freckles on his cheeks and all the taunts he shoulders like a training pack, lobbed his way by the other younglings. _Real_ younglings. Younger younglings, anyway, which anywhere else wouldn’t make them so much better.

Anywhere else but here.

They aren’t always the problem; sometimes other masters are, or relentless bounty hunters, or haggling Toydarians, or the occasionally strict cantina owner without a heart of melted Mustafar metal.

This is why Anders prefers cute things, _little_ ones, soft and fuzzy like the Temple’s stray voorpak Mr. Wiggums, whose keen eyes don’t water and whose sharp teeth don’t bite.

‘Give it back,’ Anders says.

As if _that_ ever worked.

The kath hound says nothing, domesticated salky with more horns than brains, but it does pant through its nose, jaw vise-tight.

Maybe calling it stupid isn’t strictly fair. The beast did manage to steal someone else’s rock—and hold onto it after that, which is the hardest part, a tactic more successful than any of the histories Anders is currently studying. The jedi often _won_ those fights, but all Anders has to show for it is drool staining his sleeve, a red face and a sharp temper and the kath hound’s fur flying, shedding in excitement, making Anders sneeze.

The kath hound returns the favor. When kath hounds sneeze, they drool even more. Mouth full of someone else’s property, it even has the nerve to grin.

‘I hate you,’ Anders says, falling back onto the ground to rub at the tooth-marks on his fingertips. Each little reminder is something physical, not exactly painful, but he feels it when he shouldn’t. Understanding only makes the truth worse, never better.

At least, in his experience.

‘Let that anger go, you must,’ someone says behind him, too young to sound so wise. ‘Struggle for no reason, you cannot—young padawan.’

The shadow that falls over him is short, but it stretches from the late-afternoon sunset, narrowing upward to a red face and a big grin. The youngling is shorter than he looks, but that’s just a matter of angles—where Anders is sitting; where Anders is always sitting.

He wipes the dust off his legs but it sticks to the drool on his fingers. The kath hound bounds forward not as a pet to its master but as a friend to a friend, dropping the rock at the youngling’s feet.

‘Right. Of course. _Now_ you let it go,’ Anders says.

‘That’s because I wasn’t making such a fuss over it,’ the youngling replies.

‘Or because he stole it for you,’ Anders says, and the kath hound snorts, shaking out its heavy fur.

‘All this over one rock? I don’t think so.’ The youngling retrieves it, dropped into the center of Anders’s palm a moment later, bite-marks already fading against what remains, always the calluses from his lightsaber. The kath hound’s teeth never broke skin. ‘Is it a special rock?’

‘It’s just a rock,’ Anders says, sticking it back into the hidden pocket where it belongs. It could be any other rock but it isn’t, and that’s why it’s so special—though he’s never been able to understand it, much less compose the perfect explanation.

‘You can call me Hawke,’ the youngling adds, though Anders hadn’t planned on calling him anything.


End file.
